Quote:1- I find that sad that you have not heard of this great figure in TKD's history. What makes it sader is that he was the 1st president of your Federation. In fact, he was for several years. How can they not list him as such? I think most, if not all groups, be it Countries, sports groups, associations, fraternal groups etc, at least list the previous presidents.

His being president of the federation does not fit with anything I know, so I would sincerely appreciate a source reference. Everything I have been taught is that HU Lee trained in excile in Manchuria during the occupation, taught in Korea after the war and was indoctrinated into ITF forms by Gen. Choi before coming to America under the sponsorship of his American student. There simply is no mention of others in this formation. Certainly absence of credit is not absense of need for credit.

Quote:2- How is history not relevant to a group? Especially the history of THE group!

I hope I didn't go that far! The group is taught the group's history as it is given. Few people look past the history books that they are provided and fewer still learn those. It's the way the world is.

I'll spend more time reading that but the distinction just hit me. I've met the current president of ATA very briefly but for the life of me could not tell you who that is. Even the current president is not mentioned on the web site or on the videos. President in ATA at least, is a business role - matters of how the rules need to adapt to fit the realities of insurance, matters of planning growth and executing the desires of the council. It is an executive position. I am sure that he had other positions and roles during this period.

While the administrative and executive people are very important to the organization, the students are well shielded from the politics and business aspects, as are junior instructors for the most part. As a school owner I begin to see what's behind the curtain.

The people that are the face of the orgainization are the Master's Council - responsible for the definition and refinement of the curriculum - and the next tier of high ranks that are responsible for Instruction, Education, and Tournaments.

I do see, just from comparing biographies, that EGM H U Lee taught under his supervision in the MI facility.

_________________________
sam dan Songham Taekwondo
The learning has just begun...

Quote:I do see, just from comparing biographies, that EGM H U Lee taught under his supervision in the MI facility.

Yes & I am sure (guess) that GM Kang being the 1st president of the ATA was more because of his senority & the fact that it was an arm of the ITF & not the org that it is today. I would also not be surprised if his (GMM Kang) role was more prefunctatory. None the less, I do think he was the 1st president. So I would be interested to see what senior ATA people say. It may be they or some look at the ATA as a new group, post ITF seperation.I do look forward to any other info you can get.

Although I don't see TKD losing it's popularity, losing face is another thing. There is one instructor who is KKW certified and he stopped teaching the patterns and is just teaching sparring. He wants to develop Olympic fighters. Although he has many students, they are not learning TKD as set down by the KKW. Fighting is a small part of the art and what are his students going to teach when they are of rank. Are they going to water it down more? All because of a one in a million dream to be in the Olympics? TKD is more then that which is one reason I would like it out of the Olympics or at least include the Whole Art. The Olympic dream has helped it lose face.

Quote: All because of a one in a million dream to be in the Olympics? TKD is more then that which is one reason I would like it out of the Olympics or at least include the Whole Art. The Olympic dream has helped it lose face.

There are some supporters for Olympic TKD and some who aren't very enthusiastic. For those who are against Olympic TKD, their rationale is that it waters down the art. Those who support Olympic TKD say that its a good way for their art to be known and wide spread, and allows their practitioners to go beyond world championships. Just my 2 cents.

i cannot answer the question is this losing popularity or face, but what i can say is that every martial arts get's flared in one way or another. practicing TKD and seeing it used i can say it is very practical. everything is practical if u knwo how to use it.

note. one can NEVEr say one martial art is better then the other. it all depends on the fighter. if one fighter is more skilled then the other in his or her art then yes obviously he or she will win, but there is always a slight chance or mishap that could happen so you never really know

but anyways, taekwondo has evolved as as every other martial art

personally i know taekwondo has turned more into a sport and it's fun but at the end of the day if i had to use self defence i would not use pure taekwondo. i would use it wher ei know it will be effective but i feel a mix of all kinds of fighting methods is best. so i guess yes i adopt the philosophy of jeet kun do i think it's how it's spelled. i will try to learn as much as i can and reject what ever i feel doesnt work for me. not i said work for me. so what may not work for me might work for the next person

Although I don't see TKD losing it's popularity, losing face is another thing. There is one instructor who is KKW certified and he stopped teaching the patterns and is just teaching sparring. He wants to develop Olympic fighters. Although he has many students, they are not learning TKD as set down by the KKW. Fighting is a small part of the art and what are his students going to teach when they are of rank. Are they going to water it down more? All because of a one in a million dream to be in the Olympics? TKD is more then that which is one reason I would like it out of the Olympics or at least include the Whole Art. The Olympic dream has helped it lose face.

Mike

No, NO, NO,

It is not the olympic dream that is making TKD lose face, this is the work of one very incompetant instructor. Most all WTF affiliated organizations teach forms for numerious reasons, one being, the better your forms are the better your sparring is going to be, forms/patterns are the basics of TKD this instructor is an idiot that should not be teaching. I assure you that this instructor is not the norm and will be lucky to be in business a few years from now.

I'm going to have to disagree better pattern performance does not mean better sparring ability nor does it mean a better chance for a person to defend themselves.

In California the TKD tournament circuit is very big, and I hear its even bigger in the east coast. Out here in the west coast there are schools who are thriving simply because they focus 100% of their training on competition.

I have seen this for myself. Yellow belts who can spar at blue belt level but can barely do their yellow belt pattern.

If your into competition your going to go where you can get trained by the best in order to improve your performance. And if your sparring and winning your seeing results so your going to keep attending that particular school.

If your training forms but aren't learning self defense out of them, then your just going through the motions. Which is what a lot of WTF schools do. At least the ones I've seen. And in competition forms are all about aesthetics.

I'm all about the training regardless of what style.

This being said its should be obvious that WTF sparring completely exclude their most effective tools for striking. But how they train their kicks is something everyone should take a look at.

Agreed. Forms/Patterns don't make your sparring better. Forms/Patterns don't make your self defense better. If you want to fight you must train fighting. If you want to learn how to defend yourself then your learn self defense. While Forms/Patterns may have techniques within them, they simply are not valid ways to train for one or the other as main thing. You want to supplement them then go ahead but if it is your basis then your are missing out. And if you decide not to include them and direct your energies to more hands on training; the better.

TKD isn't losing face because of the Olympics. TKD is losing face because of the poor practitioners that are being poured out. Too many bad schools with many bad schools not knowing they are bad schools. And this isn't just in TKD this is in almost every facet of martial arts. This is what happens to over exposed items. Take "Product A" for example. "Product A" was developed and is a great product. It is quality at its best and people enjoy it. Well more and more people hear about "Product A" and also want it so the demand goes up but the supply is not as forth coming. So another company sees this demand and tries to copy it and produces "Product B" and sells it as "Product A". "Product B" isn't too bad and looks even nicer however the quality may not be as good but still a good product and you would be happy to own it; heck it may be new and improved. Another company then produces "Product C" and another company produces "Product D" ... and so on. Well that is what has happened in martial arts and with TKD. It is now "Product Z" for many schools and that is what the public sees and the martial arts world sees; and why the respect level goes down. Meanwhile some "Product A", "Product B" and so on are still around and take the hit as well.

_________________________"IF I COME ... I'M BRINGING THE PAIN WITH ME"

I'm going to have to disagree better pattern performance does not mean better sparring ability nor does it mean a better chance for a person to defend themselves.

end quote

Dereck (quote)

Agreed. Forms/Patterns don't make your sparring better. Forms/Patterns don't make your self defense better. If you want to fight you must train fighting. If you want to learn how to defend yourself then your learn self defense. While Forms/Patterns may have techniques within them, they simply are not valid ways to train for one or the other as main thing. You want to supplement them then go ahead but if it is your basis then your are missing out. And if you decide not to include them and direct your energies to more hands on training; the better End (quote)

I am going to disagree with both of you on this. When forms are practiced over and over with power, percission, and attention to detail and one becomes as good as one can be at their patterns/forms (it will) translate into better more powerful and accurate punches, better more powerfull and accurate kicks, better more powerful and proper blocks, better muscule memory, balance, better body tone ect. when trained in combination with sparring all this carries over to better sparring. Every good sparrer that I have seen is almost always very good at their forms too. Not saying that one can do patterns and automaticly be good at sparring, way more to it than that, but when one has more of the package one is more complete. By training forms you issulate and perfect each fuction and perfect it"s movement and transitions to other movements. This also works in reverse, people that also sparr seem to do well with their forms/patterns, or lets say better than they would have. When you eliminate parts of training you are limiting other parts that you train, these pieces are there for a reason.